Tuesday, February 21, 2012

5pts too much?

On this I am going to talk about a space marine war gear which no one in his or her right mind would use and a suggestion to fix it. Yes, we are talking about the glorious combat shield.

Combat shield is a space marine war gear costing 5pts on current codex, granting the user 6+ invul save and retaining the user's side arm. 5pts getting you a 6+ invul save sounds ridiculous to begin with, because investing a further 10pts will get a a proper 3+ invul save in the form of storm shield, not mentioning the Sergeant is usually the dude having the precious power fist / thunder hammer and hence naturally the last guy you would ever want to assign a wound when the squad is in close combat with real nasties, it doesn't require long to figure out 83.3333% of the time buying a combat shield is just a waste of points. Basically, it is a piece of junk.

But... but... they look so cool!

Solution:
Very simple, in the next codex, whenever a ASM sergeant buys a power fist, he should be able to get the combat shield for FREE! Not thunder hammer, not power sword but only power fist... since GW seems to tailor their modern army to model range anyway. I would say this is the best solution. Personally I really like the looks of combat shield, but at 5 pts they will never make it into my army list... unless my army is making a fashion statement.

Seriously, when was the last time any of you see a combat shield in a game?

2 comments:

Only time I've seen a combat shield is for assault squad sergeants that didn't take any update weapons. Which in-itself is still a waste because, yes you get a save against that lascannon, but by losing the model you lose leadership and extra attacks...

Anyway I'd like to see it as either a bonus (like you said) or maybe make it included in the base wargear for the sergeant themselves.